gather information about an area
determine using statistics - the norm, the mean and the average
project changes (future) with little or no information or lots of information from other areas using what ever you are measuring

And having ITIL certification is merely to be able to understand how to implement in best practice_________________John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Having recently taken on the task of implementing Capacity Mgmt, and having scoured the internet for resources - books, websites, white pages etc there is a distinct shortage of material out there. I've just registered to attend the ITIL Practitioner course, but would appreciate some review of my planned approach so far.

My current plan of attack is much inline with the standard dipiction through ITIL:

Business Capacity: Calculating the requirements of projects, and building a 'forward schedule for new resources' to allow for improved planning and budgeting from the Infra side of life.

Service Capacity: our service catalogue is a mess, a real mess, so this is something that will come together somewhere down the line. However, many SLAs have performanced based targets (transaction response etc)that fall under the scope of availability and capacity - so this is a begining point for Service Capacity.

Resource Capacity: Using the current monitoring tools we have and combining with a current CMDB development project the plan is to incorporate a CDB/CIMS. For starters the plan is to measure, and report on the following:

Configuration
•Server / System name.
•Number of CPUs.
•The size of the server / system memory.
•The size of the server / system disk space.
•The network interfaces on the system, as well as their MTU, speed, and physical address.

•Disk
• the amount of free space on the disk
• the total capacity of the disk

•Memory
• the amount of free memory
• the amount of free swap space

•Processes
• the name of a process
• the ID of a process (PID)
• the amount of memory used by a process
• process run time (on the CPU)
• the number of running processes

•Network
• the name of the network interface
• the number of kilobytes flowing into the interface per second
• the number of kilobytes flowing out of the interface per second
• the number of inbound errors
• the number of outbound errors

•File System
• the name of the file server / system
• the size of the file server / system
• the amount of the file server / system that is being used

•User
• the number of users who are connected / logged into the server / system (?)

Once all this information begins to collate, and the history builds to facilitate analysis and trending, does anyone know of any open source capacity management tools.

However, being my first walk in this field any and all feedback / comments are much appreciated.

Tony, Viking, et al
I too am just beginning my adventures in CM-land. It is a new position / responsibility in my co. so I get to "Go where none have gone before!" While researching where this might take me I came across ITIL and this forum. I can spell ITIL, and I know what the "IT" part stands for, but that's about the limit of my exposure so far. I come from years of "Wintel" server management, and recent Six Sigma /Black Belt certification. My new role will cut across all platforms.

While we don't have any "ITIL" practices in house, we have pieces-parts that could benefit from being organized and enhanced by ideas from Best Practices. We started documenting and monitoring our Intel equipment much along the lines of what Tony had listed.

Now I get to dig in and try to find what all those numbers mean to me and the business

As for more info/resources, two sites were mentioned to me: Performance Dynamics Co, and CMG
I saw PerfDynamics mentioned some open source monitoring tools. CMG has some white papers on Monitoring, Managing, Planning, etc.

For anyone who's interested there is a ITIL Practitioner Certificate (V2): Capacity Management course running in Manchester April 14-16.

Details:

Objectives
Today's managers face ever-increasing scrutiny regarding their application of business processes, and Capacity Managers are no exception to this. Following internationally accepted ITIL(R) guidelines and using the ITIL(R) framework of best practices ensures that a business's practices are beyond reproach.

This course is about understanding service levels and resource usage and aligning capacity requirements with business demands. Correct application of Capacity Management processes will ensure that IT provides the business with appropriate resource levels in the most cost effective manner commensurate with meeting business and service level requirements.

Who Should Attend
To achieve service level objectives for the business, an integrated Capacity Management function operating across the three levels of business, service, and resource is essential. If your Capacity Management process complies with ITIL(R) guidelines you can be assured that your process is beyond reproach, cost-effective, reliable, accountable, and transparent.

Examination
Inclusive of fee. The course completes with a one and a quarter hour written assignment (essay style) and a one hour closed-book multiple-choice paper consisting of 25 questions. The questions will be based on a Case Study and a set of discipline specific appendices to the Case Study.

Prerequisites
In order to take the examination, delegates will have to hold the ITIL(R) Foundation Certificate. It will not be necessary for delegates to have the ITSM Managers certificate.

Course Content
Topics covered in the course include:
ITIL(R) defines the Capacity Management process in terms of the traditional functions of performance Management and Capacity Planning. Performance Management entails the day-to-day addressing of the performance aspects of an IT service. Capacity Planning is a strategic function used to predict IT resource requirements. It is a proactive extension of Performance Management, bringing order to chaos and predictability to IT Service Management.

This course provides an introduction to Capacity Management as a repeatable process. It covers performance analysis, system sizing, performance measurement and capacity planning in today's challenging business and IT environment. Practical instruction is given in topics such as interactive activities (monitoring, tuning, analysis), modelling, demand management and application sizing. The course will discuss analytical modelling, tools, formulas and techniques used.

A major goal of Capacity Management is to ensure that the business service level objectives are met. The course will include discussion of the critical relationship between the business view of Quality of Service and available system performance metrics.

This training course is presented on behalf of Business Training Partnership by an ISEB accredited training provider.